Hands-On: NatureMill Electric Composter - Week 3

Well, technically, this is Week 4, since I was out of town for the previous week. Although I enjoyed my vacation, the NatureMill composter apparently encountered some problems while I was gone.

Two of the editors keeping tabs on the composter, Sean Carroll and Dan Costa, noticed the PRO XE was making a strange noise. When they opened the top, it appeared as if the steel turning arm was stuck--and with a full load of half-finished compost. Dan cleaned the chamber out entirely and noticed that a couple of paper towels that were tossed in were wrapped around the turning arm's axle. He cleared the paper, dumped the compost back into the chamber, and added some sawdust pellets.

I can't be sure whether this was the cause of the jam, but when I returned, the unit still seemed to be stuck. I pushed the OK button, which is supposed to clear any jams and dump the compost into the tray at the bottom. After nothing seemed to happen, I rebooted the unit by unplugging and plugging it back in.

Getting Under the HoodTo try to fix the stuck turning arm, I completely cleaned out the chamber again and rebooted once more. After doing this, the arm turned, but it seemed particularly sluggish, even sticking at some points, in which case I had to coax it to turn freely again. I also picked out some tough, fibrous material from the compost that was in the chamber (which looked like paper towels and dried banana peels, see below).

More about my test and images, after the jump.

It was clear that there was not enough moisture in the chamber, perhaps
from the addition of too much sawdust. I'm just glad we decided not to
add any fish, meat, or dairy (as the instructions say you can), because
without the arm turning and mixing everything in, that would have
created a big, smelly mess.

I contacted NatureMill tech support and received the following
reply: "There have been a few cases where the wrong size mixing bar has
burned out the motor. It sounds like that could be the case in your
instance." NatureMill is sending out new parts, which I will install.
Now I may be the first person in history to say, "My composter is on
the fritz."

Testing the pHI tested the pH of the compost in the chamber using the Luster Leaf Rapitest mini pH Tester 1815.
After taking several readings, the compost in the chamber averaged 6.5
to 7.2, which is in the ideal range for most common plants. Anything
below 6.0 is considered acidic and readings about 7.5 are considered
alkaline.

Next time, I'll post the results of the repair job and my final analysis of the NatureMill PRO XE.

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